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Section 2. Attitudes and Persuasion Techniques

Attitude

Attitude : A set of emotions beliefs and behaviours towards a particular object, person, issue or event

→ consistent way in which we operate

→ Attitude can be:

  • Positive: liking for a person, object, issue or event

  • Negative: dislike for a person, object, issue or event

  • Neutral: not interested in having an attitude to the person, object, issue or event

  • Ambivalent: having both positive and negative attitudes to the person, object, issue or event

→ Structure of Attitude: ABC Model

  • Affective : Talking about our emotions

  • Cognitive : Talking about the way we think

  • Behavioural : Talking about the way we act

    → often in agreement with the affective and cognitive part of attitude, but not always due to:

    • factors within an attitude (strength, accessibility, specificity, ambivalence)

    • personality (high / low self monitors)

    • outside factors such as social pressures

  • change in one component often leads to change in others

  • Example Model:

    → Affect: Football makes me feel disgust |

    → Behaviour: I don’t go to football | Components of a negative attitude

    → Cognition: I think football is a waste of time |

Workbook Exercises for Attitude:

  • Attitude Towards Smoking:

    → Feel like its gross

    → Doesn’t smoke

    → Smoking harms your health

  • Attitude Towards Tattoos

    → I like tattoos

    → I get a tattoo

    → Tattoo’s help me express my identity and individuality

  • Attitude Towards Fitness and Exercise

    → I dislike having to exercise as it hurts

    → I exercise though

    → Exercise helps mental strength and physical wellbeing

Persuasion / Attitude Change

Persuasion : The art of convincing others to change their attitudes or behaviours

→ process by which a persons attitudes or behaviour are influenced by communication from other people

  • Examples include advertising and political persuasion

→ Theories of Persuasion Relating to External Factors that Affects Persuasion

  • Yale Attitude Change Approach: Message content, source and audience characteristics affecting persuasion

    • The Source - WHO

      • expert

      • attractive

      • likeable

      • fast talking

      • trustworthy

      • powerful

      • similar to the audience

    • The Message (content) - WHAT

      • strong emotions

      • statistical / factual information

      • repetitive

      • genuine

      • two sided

      • novel ideas

    • The Audience - WHOM

      • deep thinking people (can relate to string arguments)

      • high self monitors

      • younger people (older people usually have set pre-existing attitudes)

      • low esteem people

Central Route

Peripheral Route

Source

Expertise in information

Fame / Attractiveness

Message

Facts / Statistics

Novelty

Audience

Intelligence and Cognitive Capacity of viewers

High Self Monitors

Direct Experience

Long lasting persuasion

————————————————

Indirect Experience

———-———————————-

Temporary persuasion

  • Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Central and peripheral routes to persuasion

    → Central route to persuasion

    • Method: (FIIRM)

      • facts and statistics provide detail information

      • intellectual processing is required to think carefully about the information and evaluate it

      • intelligence and cognitive capacity are required to follow the arguments presented

      • reason is used to argue the point of interest

      • motivation is required to pay attention to the arguments

      • long lasting persuasion

    • Characteristics of good persuasion

      • The attitude change is likely to be permanent because the processing is deep and thorough

      • The persuasive argument may be come part of the audiences belief structure

    → Peripheral route to persuasion

    • Characteristics:

      • beauty / attractiveness

      • short lived / temporary persuasion

      • fame

      • similarity

      • pleasure

      • novelty

      • fun

      • few information given (facts and statistics)

      • few intellectual opinions

      • little use for:

        • cognitive capacity,

        • intelligence

        • motivation to think

        • reason

  • Experience Model: Direct / indirect experience

    → Direct Experience

    • Event happens to individual

    • quite strong change in attitude

    • long lasting persuasion

    → Indirect Experience

    • Event happens to someone else

    • less effect on change in attitude

    • temporary persuasion

→ Strategies of Persuasion

  • Norm of reciprocity (what you give, you get back)

    → Social norm that involves in-kind exchanges between people - responding to another’s action with another equivalent action (can be both positive and negative)

  • Door in the face (ridiculous thing, say no, smaller thing, feel guilty so say yes)

    → An unreasonably large request is asked before making a smaller one that is more likely to be agreed to

  • Foot in the door (small thing, say yes, bigger thing, say yes more)

    → A smaller offer is made first to coerce them and then bigger offers are made throughout to increase the likelihood of agreement

Various factors influence attitude formation and / or attitude change

Accessibility : easily related to strength and can be brought to mind quickly if in convenience

Specificity : quite particular to the situation at hand

F

Section 2. Attitudes and Persuasion Techniques

Attitude

Attitude : A set of emotions beliefs and behaviours towards a particular object, person, issue or event

→ consistent way in which we operate

→ Attitude can be:

  • Positive: liking for a person, object, issue or event

  • Negative: dislike for a person, object, issue or event

  • Neutral: not interested in having an attitude to the person, object, issue or event

  • Ambivalent: having both positive and negative attitudes to the person, object, issue or event

→ Structure of Attitude: ABC Model

  • Affective : Talking about our emotions

  • Cognitive : Talking about the way we think

  • Behavioural : Talking about the way we act

    → often in agreement with the affective and cognitive part of attitude, but not always due to:

    • factors within an attitude (strength, accessibility, specificity, ambivalence)

    • personality (high / low self monitors)

    • outside factors such as social pressures

  • change in one component often leads to change in others

  • Example Model:

    → Affect: Football makes me feel disgust |

    → Behaviour: I don’t go to football | Components of a negative attitude

    → Cognition: I think football is a waste of time |

Workbook Exercises for Attitude:

  • Attitude Towards Smoking:

    → Feel like its gross

    → Doesn’t smoke

    → Smoking harms your health

  • Attitude Towards Tattoos

    → I like tattoos

    → I get a tattoo

    → Tattoo’s help me express my identity and individuality

  • Attitude Towards Fitness and Exercise

    → I dislike having to exercise as it hurts

    → I exercise though

    → Exercise helps mental strength and physical wellbeing

Persuasion / Attitude Change

Persuasion : The art of convincing others to change their attitudes or behaviours

→ process by which a persons attitudes or behaviour are influenced by communication from other people

  • Examples include advertising and political persuasion

→ Theories of Persuasion Relating to External Factors that Affects Persuasion

  • Yale Attitude Change Approach: Message content, source and audience characteristics affecting persuasion

    • The Source - WHO

      • expert

      • attractive

      • likeable

      • fast talking

      • trustworthy

      • powerful

      • similar to the audience

    • The Message (content) - WHAT

      • strong emotions

      • statistical / factual information

      • repetitive

      • genuine

      • two sided

      • novel ideas

    • The Audience - WHOM

      • deep thinking people (can relate to string arguments)

      • high self monitors

      • younger people (older people usually have set pre-existing attitudes)

      • low esteem people

Central Route

Peripheral Route

Source

Expertise in information

Fame / Attractiveness

Message

Facts / Statistics

Novelty

Audience

Intelligence and Cognitive Capacity of viewers

High Self Monitors

Direct Experience

Long lasting persuasion

————————————————

Indirect Experience

———-———————————-

Temporary persuasion

  • Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Central and peripheral routes to persuasion

    → Central route to persuasion

    • Method: (FIIRM)

      • facts and statistics provide detail information

      • intellectual processing is required to think carefully about the information and evaluate it

      • intelligence and cognitive capacity are required to follow the arguments presented

      • reason is used to argue the point of interest

      • motivation is required to pay attention to the arguments

      • long lasting persuasion

    • Characteristics of good persuasion

      • The attitude change is likely to be permanent because the processing is deep and thorough

      • The persuasive argument may be come part of the audiences belief structure

    → Peripheral route to persuasion

    • Characteristics:

      • beauty / attractiveness

      • short lived / temporary persuasion

      • fame

      • similarity

      • pleasure

      • novelty

      • fun

      • few information given (facts and statistics)

      • few intellectual opinions

      • little use for:

        • cognitive capacity,

        • intelligence

        • motivation to think

        • reason

  • Experience Model: Direct / indirect experience

    → Direct Experience

    • Event happens to individual

    • quite strong change in attitude

    • long lasting persuasion

    → Indirect Experience

    • Event happens to someone else

    • less effect on change in attitude

    • temporary persuasion

→ Strategies of Persuasion

  • Norm of reciprocity (what you give, you get back)

    → Social norm that involves in-kind exchanges between people - responding to another’s action with another equivalent action (can be both positive and negative)

  • Door in the face (ridiculous thing, say no, smaller thing, feel guilty so say yes)

    → An unreasonably large request is asked before making a smaller one that is more likely to be agreed to

  • Foot in the door (small thing, say yes, bigger thing, say yes more)

    → A smaller offer is made first to coerce them and then bigger offers are made throughout to increase the likelihood of agreement

Various factors influence attitude formation and / or attitude change

Accessibility : easily related to strength and can be brought to mind quickly if in convenience

Specificity : quite particular to the situation at hand